Faculty Recital
Delta State University Department of Music
Recital Hall, Bologna Performing Arts Center
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
7:30 PM

Program

Divertissement for multiple woodwinds and piano
Sy Brandon (b. 1945)
World premiere

1. Intrada
2. Nocturne
3. Valse
4. Marche
5. Romanza
6. Galop

Caprice en forme de valse for alto saxophone
Paul Bonneau (1918 – 1995)

Sonata for oboe and piano
Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963)

1. Elégie
2. Scherzo
3. Déploration

Sonata for clarinet and piano
Francis Poulenc

1. Allegro tristamente
2. Romanza
3. Allegro con fuoco

Ode to a Toad
Ray Pizzi (b. 1943)

Notes

Sy Brandon’s Divertissement for multiple woodwinds and piano (an adaptation of a prior work for oboe, percussion, and piano) was written in fulfillment of a Co-op Press Commission Assistance grant award, and is presented tonight in its world premiere performance. It is one of few existing works that features a woodwind musician playing multiple instruments. The composer says about this piece:

The Intrada [for flute] is energetic and playful with a lot of interplay between instruments. The Nocturne [for saxophone], being a night piece, is both lyrical and mysterious. The Waltz [for bassoon] is in a flowing waltz tempo with occasional shifts away from three beats in the measure. The Marche [for clarinet] is not a piece that would be used in a parade. It is a march that exists in the mind of a child who is playing with toy soldiers; therefore there is playfulness and humor that would not occur in a functional march. Lyrical lines and expressiveness are the predominating features of the Romanza [for oboe]. The piece comes to a rousing close with the Galop [for multiple woodwind instruments], which is a “perpetual motion” type of movement with a lot of rhythmic variety.

Paul Bonneau wrote the Caprice en forme de valse for seminal French-school saxophone soloist Marcel Mule in 1950, and it remains a favorite of saxophonists and audiences today.

Among composer Francis Poulenc’s final works is an incomplete set of sonatas for woodwind instruments with piano. The sonatas for oboe and for clarinet, presented tonight, are frequently performed, as is the flute sonata; a planned bassoon sonata was never begun. The oboe and clarinet sonatas were written within a few weeks of each other, and dedicated to the memories of two of Poulenc’s departed friends and musical colleagues, the oboe sonata to Serge Prokofiev and the clarinet sonata to Arthur Honneger.

Ray Pizzi is best known as a virtuoso jazz artist and studio musician on several instruments, and one of few to distinguish himself as a bassoonist in jazz and commercial music (some of his unique bassoon sounds can be heard in movie soundtracks like Return of the Jedi and Predator 2, as well as television shows like Family Guy). He describes Ode to a Toad as a “whimsical swamp blues.”

—Bret Pimentel

Faculty Recital
Delta State University Department of Music
Recital Hall, Bologna Performing Arts Center
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
7:30 PM

Program

Syrinx (La flûte de Pan)
Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)

Rapsodie
Claude Debussy
ed. Rousseau

Petite Pièce
Claude Debussy

Two pieces
Claude Debussy
arr. Jolles/Lucarelli

1. Reverie
2. Menuet (from Suite Bergamasque)

from Children’s Corner
Claude Debussy
arr. Prorvich

1. Jimbo’s Lullaby
2. The Little Shepherd
3. Golliwogg’s Cakewalk

Première Rapsodie
Claude Debussy

Notes

Achille-Claude Debussy (1862-1918) is widely regarded as a leading practitioner of what, in his words, “some fools call Impressionism,” a term he felt was too narrow for his style. His works were crucial to the transition from the Romantic 19^th century into the Modernist 20^th, and hinted at each while fully embracing neither.

The Syrinx for solo flute was written in 1912 as incidental music for a play. The title refers to the chaste nymph from Greek mythology, who becomes a set of musical pipes in an attempt to avoid the romantic advances of the god Pan. The piece’s rhythmic and harmonic freedom are hallmarks of Debussy’s style.

The Rapsodie for saxophone was written during a period from 1903 to 1911 to fulfill a commission by wealthy American amateur Elise Hall, referred to in Debussy’s correspondence as the “Femme-saxophone” (the “saxophone lady”). Debussy was less than enchanted with Hall (and with the pink dress she liked to wear in performance), and also pessimistic about her ability to execute difficult technical passages. Debussy’s original version avoids any serious challenges in the saxophone part; contemporary saxophonists almost always play Eugene Rousseau’s edition, which reassigns some of the more virtuosic material to the saxophonist.

Two piano works, Reverie (1890) and the Menuet from Suite Bergamasque (1905), are presented here in arrangement for oboe and piano. Reverie was an early publication and reflects a charming but not-quite-mature style that embarrassed Debussy in his later career; the Menuet represents a more sophisticated and colorful harmonic approach.

Children’s Corner (1908) is a suite of short, witty piano pieces (arranged here for bassoon and piano) dedicated to Debussy’s daughter, Claude-Emma: “To my dear little Chouchou, with her father’s affectionate apologies for what follows.” The English titles are thought to reflect the games a young French girl might learn from a British nanny.

The Petite Pièce and the Première Rapsodie, both completed in 1910, are fruits of Debussy’s ongoing involvement with his alma mater, the Paris Conservatory. Both pieces were written as examination pieces for Conservatory clarinet students, with the Petite Pièce intended for sight-reading exams and the Première Rapsodie used as a competition piece. The fluently idiomatic writing testifies to Debussy’s grasp of the instrument’s expressive possibilities, and the technical and interpretive challenges testify to the high ability level of the Conservatory’s student clarinetists.

—Bret Pimentel

Department of Music
Delta State University College of Arts and Sciences
Recital Hall, Bologna Performing Arts Center
Monday, February 15, 2010
7:30 PM

PROGRAM

Sonate for oboe and piano
Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)

1. Munter
2. Sehr langsam – Lebhaft

Sonata for clarinet and piano
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

1. Grazioso
2. Andantino – Vivace e leggerio

Rhapsody for bassoon
Willson Osborne (1906-1979)

Concerto for alto saxophone
Pierre Max Dubois (1930-1995)

1. Lento espressivo – Allegro
2. Sarabande
3. Rondo

NOTES

Paul Hindemith wrote his Sonate for oboe and piano in 1938. In that year, he left his native Germany and settled briefly in Switzerland, in part due to increased scrutiny on his family because of his wife’s Jewish ancestry (he would emigrate to the U.S.A. two years later). The Sonate is a particular favorite of mine because of its no-nonsense approach to form—no time wasted on frivolous introductions or transitions here—and because the composer’s conscientiously idiomatic oboe writing reveals a deep affinity for the instrument.

Leonard Bernstein’s Sonata for clarinet and piano was his first published work, written without a commission in 1941-2 (the composer completed it at age 23). In an interview later in life, Bernstein expressed his affection for the piece despite a certain “student element.” The element to which Bernstein referred may, in fact, have been the strong influence of Hindemith, with whom Bernstein had come into contact as a student at the Tanglewood summer music program. This influence is most evident in the first movement; the second betrays Bernstein’s interest in jazz. The piece represents a true equal-partner collaboration between clarinet and piano, rather than clarinet solo with piano accompaniment.

Another of Hindemith’s American pupils was Willson Osborne. Osborne’s 1952 Rhapsody for bassoon is the most frequently performed of his works, few of which are well known. The Rhapsody’s copious expressive markings and frequent tempo and meter changes suggest that Osborne found standard musical notation somewhat rigid for his flowing musical lines.

Pierre Max Dubois wrote a number of works for the saxophone family, including this charming Concerto for alto saxophone in 1959. Fellow Frenchman Jean-Marie Londeix, who commissioned the piece, was apparently unhappy with the first movement’s opening solo section, and rewrote it to his own satisfaction. The composer approved the rewrite, and the piece was published in that revised form. The second and third movements are a sarabande (a very old, very sensual Spanish dance) and a lively, romping finale.

—Bret Pimentel